Can Congress overcome its petty differences and actually do something?

By DONNA CASSATA
July 7, 2013

The U.S. Capitol: Where politics overcomes the needs of the nation.

Republicans and Democrats put goodwill to the test as Congress returns this week to potentially incendiary fights over nominations, unresolved disputes over student loans and the farm bill, and the uncertainty of whether lawmakers have the political will to rewrite the nation’s immigration laws.

The rare cooperation on display in the Senate last month with passage of a bipartisan immigration bill could be wiped out immediately if Majority LeaderHarry Reid, frustrated with minority Republicans’ delaying tactics on judges and nominations, tries to change the Senate rules by scrapping the three-fifths majority for a simple majority.

Republican leader Mitch McConnell has indicated it is a decision Reid could regret if the GOP seizes control in next year’s elections.

“Once the Senate definitively breaks the rules to change the rules, the pressure to respond in kind will be irresistible to future majorities,” McConnell said last month, looking ahead to 2014 when Democrats have to defend 21 seats to the GOP’s 14.

McConnell envisioned a long list of reversals from the Democratic agenda, from repealing President Barack Obama’s signature health care law to shipping radioactive nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain in Reid’s home state of Nevada.